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That Mussorgsky is just goregous. I wish I could play the pieces that get stuck in my head. I would be playing Mendelssohn 53 no 3 for sure for the recital hehehehe

I've did a little reading on Satie, recently, and I just had to laugh at this one. He wrote this mocking Clementi's style. I wish I could find a good version with the story that goes along with it on you tube. In the notes on the score, Satie tells the story of a day in the life of a Parisian bureaucrat.

I think Rossy is jealous of the horses because they get their own harems of mares hehehehe

Actually, I thought of you Rossy when I was watching TV and heard Bill Maher say this:"If we don't fix how we grow food, and don't stop turning the oceans into a carbon sink for coal, we're going to have to learn to eat all the few gnarly maggoty things that can survive mankind. Your grandkids will grow up dreaming of getting some horse meat while they munch down on their McPlankton sandwich."

I am ready, finally, to post pictures of my new Kawai but find myself thwarted by the technology. To where and how do I upload the images? I am confident that once they're on a sharing site I'll be able to link to them.

I can put them on box.com, indeed, I have them there but I need a subscription to link directly to the images.

Here then, finally, are pictures of my new Kawai CA95 set up in my own little corner of the world.

I'm providing mp3 files on Box so that you can hear what it sounds like should you feel the need.

Seven weeks in and the new toy has lost none of its magic. It's such a blast to play it without headphones. It's so alive; the whole instrument resonates, the stool resonates, guitars across the room join in and my whole body can feel the bass end when it plays.

Playing into the room I can look out of the window over the Wicklow mountains while I'm playing or put up the lyre and practise from a score.

The keyboard is just as I remember my first piano that had genuine ivory keys but the dynamic range is larger. This thing plays quietly too, the real one didn't.

After 24 years with the Clavinova and not having owned an acoustic since 1995 it's so good to hear notes lingering at the end of piece instead fizzling out in a matter of seconds. The Liszt Consolation is the piece I missed it the most and it gives me such joy now to hear the last chords slowly die away at the end instead of having to imagine it.

The performances have not been prepared with the attention to detail I'd have given them in a recital proper but I have provided them with band-aid attention after thirty odd years of abuse. These are some of the pieces I have ready to play at the drop of a hat should I find myself at a piano in company. Of course, a recording needs more care than a live performance and signs of wear are showing through in places but I think they're nice enough.

Yes, I had an old piano where it was just a damper for the bottom half of the range. The Clavinova had just two pedals but yes, this one has a fully functional sostenuto pedal - I used it to sustain the low notes in the Liszt piece during harmony changes!

If you want to study it bring it up. The only agenda I have is a chronological progression for the main sonatas, Mozart, Clementi, Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt.

Rostosky
3000 Post Club Member
Registered: 04/30/11
Posts: 3339
Loc: Lost in cyberspace.in the UK.

Nice looking piano Richard, I see you to have started your own cult.

"The cult of the crap light bulb that ruins everything"

We too have one or four.

Low energy light bulbs ruin everything. they do not allow standard lamps or table lamps to use the shade that you used,liked and loved, when normal and proper light bulbs were in vogue.

Another thing, has anyone ever tried to thread a neadle with cotton thread after dusk with only a low energy light bulb to illuminate (NOT) the operation?

Why oh why do we allow and put up with this shite to happen?

An otherwise perfectly acceptable looking music room ( with added interest of extra large book entitled "Music" to add to general ambiance) with new piano installed, ruined, ruined I say by low energy light bulb showing, naked in its uselessness and shadeless shame.

unless, unless of course (a) Richard had no money left after Kawai purchase for a lampshade, Or (b)Richard has a thing about lampshades after the incident with a childhood governess.

Or ( unlikely) (c) lampshades are not available in a suitable colour in Ireland.

Edited by Rostosky (03/09/1308:52 AM)

_________________________

Rise like lions after slumber,in unvanquishable number. Shake your chains to earth like dewwhich in sleep has fallen on you. Ye are many,they are few. Shelley

I bought that lamp, Rossy, as a matching pair many years ago to light up either side of a mirror when practising stage make-up (I was in amateur theatre for many years). I never used the shades and threw them away.

I delight in low energy light bulbs because I only have to change them once every seven to ten years. They also give out diffuse light, like a fluorescent lamp. All our bulbs are low energy but some are brighter than others. We have bright ones that are brighter than the old 120W bulbs in the front room but dimmer ones in bedrooms and hallways. Even in Ireland we can get lo-energy bulbs that are exactly the same shape as the original and genuine light bulbs of my youth.

Were I not married, none of my lights would have shades. None of them did when my wife first visited my home (before she was my wife, of course).

Oh, and I seldom use the thing. Normal room lighting is enough for me to see the score. It reflects off the white walls adequately.

Further, my childhood governess was a low energy one and no lampshades are available in Ireland unless they're green (yukkie green, not pleasant green) or the colour of peat moss.

The book is the Oxford Dictionary of Music but they chose not to put the important word (Dictionary) on the spine. There's Oxford for you. It's so that I can spell Baithoeven, Showpan, Shy Cough Ski and Bark correctly. I use it all the time.

And I didn't need money for the piano. I used a credit card. You don't have to pay those till you get a bill. Excuse me, there's someone at the door. That'll be the postman...